The Oxnard Rampage : Cities Bid Farewell to Four Victims : Detective: Several thousand mourners honor the memory of James E. O’Brien in a ceremony that is part military and part religious.

The gray casket stood draped with an American flag and flanked by stone-faced officers heavy with the burden of burying one of their own.

Off to one side, officers from around the state formed a sea of dark blue, standing at attention against a cold wind blowing through Oxnard’s Santa Clara Cemetery.

In a ceremony that was part military and part religious, Oxnard Police Detective James E. O’Brien was laid to rest Tuesday.

The burial came three hours after an overflow crowd attended the fallen detective’s funeral Mass in Camarillo.

Father Liam Kidney sprinkled the casket with holy water before an eight-member color guard blasted a 21-gun salute and a bugler played “Taps.”

Leslie O’Brien borrowed a tissue from her daughter, Kathryn, to dry her eyes before receiving the neatly folded American flag that had been draped over her estranged husband’s coffin.

“We take comfort in the hope that one day we shall see Jim again,” Kidney told the thousands of mourners who packed the 150-year-old Oxnard cemetery. “Jim, may the roads rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back. When the rain falls, let it fall softly.”

It was as if much of Ventura County stood still for a few hours Tuesday.

It was as if residents suffered such a loss when the 35-year-old lawman was shot dead last week that they needed this time to reflect.

So when 114 police motorcycles led the funeral procession from Saint Mary Magdalen Church in Camarillo to the Oxnard cemetery, hundreds of well-wishers stood along the roadside to view a column of police cars that stretched for miles along the Ventura Freeway.

Some videotaped the procession. Others held American flags as about 750 police cars and motorcycles passed by.

One onlooker who waved at passing police officers said she was at the Oxnard unemployment office Thursday when a gunman opened fire, killing three people before fleeing the scene and shooting O’Brien halfway between Oxnard and Ventura.

“It was very scary and I was in shock,” said 26-year-old Renee Sailors of Camarillo as she stood along Las Posas Road to view the procession. “This is like a conclusion for me.”

Lynn Beck of Camarillo said her sister and brother-in-law are police officers in Los Angeles County. She moved from Long Beach to Camarillo two years ago because she thought it was a safe community, she said.

“It’s almost like losing a member of my family,” Beck said as she hoisted her 4-year-old son, Conner, high enough to see the passing patrol cars. “I just wanted to pay a tribute to Officer O’Brien. I hope my son will remember this.”

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At Saint Mary Magdalen in Camarillo, about 4,500 mourners gathered to pay tribute to the fallen detective.

They remembered him as a 14-year lawman who thrived on the adrenaline rush of fighting crime, a dedicated cop who loved his job and who was committed to the ideal that Oxnard should be crime-free.

They remembered him as an accomplished athlete who excelled in boxing and karate and as the police officer who in 1991 was awarded the Medal of Valor for pulling a woman from the line of fire during a police shootout.

“He was a cop’s cop, a policeman’s policeman,” said Father Kidney, pastor at Padre Serra Parish, where O’Brien went to church. “He loved being a cop and he loved being where the action was.”

Standing near a sign-in book for guests before the church service, Santa Paula Police Chief Walt Adair said, “It’s a sad day for law enforcement any time you lose one of your own.”

After the family arrived at the church, the Oxnard Police Department honor guard folded the American flag on top of the casket. A cloth then was draped on the casket and a silver Bible placed on top.

Six pallbearers, including one man from the karate studio where O’Brien taught, lifted the casket and walked inside.

O’Brien’s family followed the casket inside the church, past dozens of flower arrangements, as musicians played “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

Outside the church, an overflow crowd of several hundred people listened to the funeral Mass over loudspeakers and watched the event on two television monitors.

Police officers from around the state in dress uniforms stood at attention in the church parking lot during the funeral service. Many of the officers came from Los Angeles.

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All of Oxnard’s 155 police officers were seated inside the church, along with many of the department’s civilian employees.

There also were four Ventura County supervisors and County Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg.

“This has been a very rough period for the county,” Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said after the service. “First the fires and then the shootings. It really shows the resiliency of the people.”

Wittenberg added: “You just never imagine something like this happening here. It’s a very ill person who brought a great deal of harm to the victims, their families and the whole community.”

But during his homily, Kidney warned mourners not to focus on the negative.

“Why did Jim O’Brien die? That’s not the right question,” Kidney said. “The right question is, why did Jim O’Brien live? He spent a lot more time living then he did dying.”

Officer Brian Ellison told those in attendance about the final moments of O’Brien’s life. Ellison was there when his friend was shot.

And Officer Bill Lewis said he always will always remember O’Brien as a tough cop who gave his all for the department and who paid the ultimate price for that loyalty.

“I imagine that it is extremely difficult for a good cop to adjust to life in heaven when he is used to the streets of hell,” Lewis said.

Outside the church, mourners told stories on how O’Brien affected their lives.

Liliana Rangel, a 16-year-old student at Channel Islands High School, said she and her aunt and cousins attended the funeral because she felt indebted to O’Brien for saving her friend.

“She was involved with drugs and gangs and everything and he helped her out,” Liliana said. “I wanted to come and be a part of this. I wanted to come today to thank him for what he did.”

Michelle Sanford Dean, who cried softly throughout the Mass, said she and O’Brien attended high school together and saw each other at the gym where she works as a part-time instructor. He had also brought police dogs to her Mar Vista Elementary School classroom and worked with children there.

“He helped all kinds of people,” she said. “He didn’t see color, age or social status. This is a great tragedy.”

Belinda Garcia said it was O’Brien, as her karate instructor, who helped her through a very difficult time in her life.

“I was on chemotherapy and I wanted to quit. But he told me, ‘We’re not quitters, we’re fighters,’ ” Garcia said.

The service lasted about 90 minutes, ending with a soulful rendition of the Irish ballad “Danny Boy.”

As the casket was wheeled from the church, 30 girls dressed in traditional Irish dancing costumes formed an honor guard of their own. Members of the Claddagh School of Irish Dancing, of which O’Brien’s daughter is a member, stood in two lines holding up soft-sole dancing shoes in salute.

At the cemetery, Susan Torres waited for three hours to see the funeral procession arrive.

“I came here for my kids,” she said. Her 10-year-old daughter, Michelle, sat next to her holding a star-shaped balloon. Torres said she wanted her children to remember this day.

“We’ve never seen nothing like this in Oxnard,” she said. “We wanted to show we cared.”

On its way into the cemetery, the procession passed under the arch created by two firetruck ladders draped with an American flag. In front of the trucks, firefighters stood at attention.

“I know what the family is going through,” said Oxnard firefighter Jeff Dye, who said his father, Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. William Dye, was killed by a drunk driver in 1981. “It’s especially hard on the kids, and I think about the other victims too. I wish we could do it for all of them.”

After the funeral, the mood of the mourners lightened at a post-burial reception at the Oxnard Community Center. Officers mingled with family and friends, drinking punch and nibbling on food.

They shared more stories about O’Brien and were treated to a performance by the Irish dance troupe. O’Brien’s children, Kathryn, 9, and Sean, 7, performed with the troupe.

Times staff writers Sara Catania, Joanna M. Miller, Tina Daunt and Scott Hadly and correspondents Julie Fields and Patrick McCartney contributed to this story.